Seeing Red, the Sequel to the People of the great circle, 20

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Florida's Phosphate Mining History 1868-2021, and the Looming Ecological Crisis, Shotwell Publishing

  The First Complete History of Florida’s Phosphate Mining - This History is Dedicated to Two American Authors who have had a Profound Effect on How I View, Agriculture, Community and the Environment, Wendell Berry and Kirkpatrick Sale.

First mined in Florida’s Bone Valley in 1868, most people are unaware that by all accounts and by every measure, phosphate mining is still a boom industry in Florida today. At the writing of this history, the world’s largest producer of phosphate for fertilizers and potash, The Mosaic Company is making strategic mining plans to 2050. 

The early phase of the phosphate mining boom of the late eighteen- hundreds spanned less than two decades before the turn-of-the-century. Fortunes were made and lost. Mines, railroads and towns sprang up almost overnight. Tracks of land that you could not give away before 1881 were suddenly worth a small fortune. Small fishing ports soon became major industrial centers for exporting phosphate to markets around the world. A rock formed 15 million to 5 million years ago, now a part of the ancient sea bed and forming the central spine of peninsular Florida, by the late nineteenth century was one of civilization’s most needed resource. The largest deposits, in North America were those found in both the northern and southern veins in Bone Valley. The lower vein is also the entire Peace River Valley, its headwaters in Bartow, Polk County and its bay in Charlotte Harbor on the Gulf coast. There in and around the lazy winding river has been a wealth of prehistoric fossils lying in rest, the obscure river meandering through it would soon draw the wealthy and less fortunate to its banks. Ever since the eighteen hundred’s, the Peace River was been radically transformed by industry and commerce. To the casual reader of history, the phosphate mining boom in Florida was not unlike all the great mining booms. Speculators from all over sought claims in what was and remains wilderness. The creeks and rivers, were the first to give up the precious mineral. Soon more intensive mining deep into the earth was necessary. 

The miners and their families lived in primitive camps and makeshift towns. It was a hard life. In Florida, phosphate was discovered in unsettled wilderness. For those who sought to exploit the deposits there, it meant having a life, cut off from anything familiar and which could be considered civilized. 

At the heart of the mining for “gray gold” in Bone Valley was agriculture. Agribusiness, even in the nineteenth century, demanded more and more nutrients to replenish the soil, fertile soil to feeding the ever-growing populations of the world. By eighteen sixty-seven, the industrial revolution was in full swing, and so was population growth. In nineteen hundred there were 1.6 billion mouths to feed. By a century later, there were 6.145 billion. Therefore, this history is forever linked to agriculture. This book is about the intersection of two of the greatest revolutions in human history, the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution. The Deep South was at first, reluctant to embrace the industrial revolution preferring their agrarian ways. Because of the agrarian practices of societies for 3700 years prior to these revolutions. 

At the height of the mining boom before 1900, there were over two-hundred and fifteen mining companies, at least on paper, spanning the 106 miles of the Peace River alone, after,1900, only fifty remained. Today, that number is 6 and the five largest are all owned by one international mining corporation who currently mine over 15,000 acres in Bone Valley. Late in 2018, another group of speculators and venture capitalists formed HPS Enterprises, a limited liability corporation and is seeking permits to mine in Bradford and Union Counties in northern 

Florida. That entire northern portion of Bone Valley had been quiet for almost a hundred years. The residents of Bradford while welcoming a company with no history, residents in Union are fighting the approval on environmental grounds. This is important, since it is the first time since the end of the nineteenth century that speculators have shown up in phosphate rich Florida. It is important also to note, that neither Bradford nor Union Counties have been previously mined for phosphate. Therefore, 135 later in Florida, mining speculation is still occurring.

That the mining of phosphates and the fortunes of a few in that process is an on-going history, has allowed me a history with relevancy. Many recently have emphasized the very fragile ecology in Florida. The truth is that all the eco-systems of the world are fragile. Without nutrients like phosphates to restore the life of the growing fields of the world, there simply will not be enough crops to feed the population of the world. Multi-national mining concerns pay millions to reclaim the lands after strip mining, but accidents happen. Most effects from such accidents have been irreversible. For many Floridians, it appears that the cost they are asked to bear are two-fold. First there is the degradation of the watershed and aquifers from accidents due to mining. Second is the loss of healthy and productive lands and the failure to restore the ecology. If a good story has a conflict, the story of phosphate mining is currently ripe with conflict. 

Ted Ehmann